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Goal-scoring woes doom Catamounts in 10-20-7 winter campaign. What's next for Vermont? |
In mathematical terms, here is the simple explanation for the University of Vermont men’s hockey team’s disappointing season: 43 FGS = 10 FV. |
Translation: 43 fewer goals scored equals 10 fewer victories. |
One year after scoring 122 goals in a 20-win season, the Catamounts lit the lamp a mere 79 times this winter. More than any other reason, that’s why Vermont finished the year at 10-20-7 overall and 6-12-6 in Hockey East while suffering a first-round playoff elimination by Massachusetts. |
The chronic dearth of goals was the Catamounts’ most significant failing. It was not the only one. |
Early on, the young defensive corps struggled defensively and offensively; the defense improved significantly but offensive contributions, beyond Matt O’Donnell, were rare. |
Team defense was porous first semester. Overall youth and inexperience were costly. Injuries discombobulated line combinations. Except for a brief late season 5-0-2 run, the Catamounts rarely played complete games. Without the deep blue-chip talent of Boston College, Boston University, etc., Vermont needed complete tea... |
Only goaltending, in the person of Stefanos Lekkas, never reached crisis state. Still, as good as he was at stopping goals, he could do little to help the Catamounts score them. |
It was never really a question of being competitive — the record shows the Catamounts could play with most teams. They just couldn’t beat them. |
Vermont played 16 one-goal games with a 7-9 record. Four of the wins came in the 5-0-2 stretch. By then the Catamounts were desperately trying to claw their way out of the Hockey East cellar, not compete for a first-round bye. |
In two other games, potential one-goal defeats were inflated by empty-net goals. They played 14 overtime games, going 3-4-7. |
What could, say, 100 goals scored rather than 79 have meant to the bottom line? Five more wins? 10? |
So for 2018-19, the No. 1 goal (pardon the pun) is more goals, particularly in 5-on-5 situations. UVM’s power play was successful at an adequate 18-20 percent this year, although not always at the most beneficial times. Full strength offense was another matter and a costly one. |
“We go from increasing our goal production from 33 (from 2015-16 to 2016-17) to a big (43-goal) drop-off. We’re looking at a number of things, 5-on-5, zone structure, the relative lack of production for our defensive corps,” said head coach Kevin Sneddon, who last summer agreed to a contract through the 2019-20 season. |
Only sophomore Ross Colton (16 goals, up from 12) and freshman Alex Esposito (10) hit double figures. Even more will be needed from them as well as from such players as Matt Alvaro, Liam Coughlin, Craig Puffer, Derek Lodermeier, Max Kaufman and Bryce Misley. Matt O’Donnell, who had eight goals, will again be counted up... |
UVM often employed an all-sophomore/freshmen group of defensemen, sometimes using as many as four freshmen. In the first semester, that group made too many big mistakes that rivals turned into easy goals. UVM forwards also struggled in the defensive zone and couldn’t produce enough offense to compensate. |
That meant the coaching staff had to retrench and focus on defense far more than expected at the cost of trying to continue the progress the offense had shown the previous year. |
“We were pretty bad in our own zone so a lot of time was spent on trying to put band-aids on those situations,” Sneddon said. |
“I don’t think we were that dynamic offensively by any means with our returning forwards,” he said. “Stef was standing on his head and we were still losing. |
“As we got better, we spent less and less time about overall team defense and far more about skill development and trying to manufacture goals." |
Given a year’s maturity for the defensemen and the presence of Lekkas, next year’s team should be stronger and more cohesive defensively at season’s start. |
However, the offensive burden will fall primarily on the returning players. The incoming class is small — three forwards, two defensemen — and do not have histories as prolific goal scorers. |
Seven players from the start of the 2017-18 season will be done by September: 6 seniors and 1 mid-season departure. Most were solid character players but managed only 13 goals and 29 assists between them. |
The question is: Will any others leave? Say, Tampa Bay draft pick Colton? Veterans/NHL selections Liam Coughlin and/or Jake Massie? Free agent Lekkas? Anyone else for any reason? |
Recently Sneddon said he had received no indication that any players eligible to return would not. He cautioned that anything was possible when NHL teams are involved. |
While UVM’s recruiting of the past couple years has moved toward pursuit of younger players who will attend 3 or 4 years down the road, next fall’s group is older and more experienced. |
The class is expected to include three forwards: Nic Hamre (Age 21 at season’s start; Brooks Bandits, 59 games, 17-41-58, 5-foot-9, 180 pounds); Dallas Comeau (21; Grande Prairie Storm, 60 22-47-69, 5-11, 170); John DeRoches (20; Connecticut Jr. Rangers, 50 21-41-62, 5-10, 174). |
Two defensemen are also expected: Carter Long (20; Lincoln Stars, 44 3-17-20, 6-4 209); Andrew Petrillo (20; Youngstown Phantoms/Central Illinois Flying Aces, 50 2-10-12, 5-11 174). |
Assuming there are no unexpected departures, the UVM defense should be stronger from season’s start. The goaltending is there to carry the Catamounts when necessary. |
The question is the ‘X’ factor in the aforementioned equation: Can they score enough goals to turn enough close defeats into victories? |
Young women in Malawi who were given cash worth 20% of their household income had a reduced incidence of HIV infection. Claudia Hammond hears about the research from economist Dr Berk Ozler of the World Bank. |
A new treatment for TB is desperately needed as more and more cases are resistant to the existing drugs. Now Dr Paul Elkington, of Imperial College London and his team have discovered that doxycycline, a cheap and common antibiotic, might be a useful addition to the cocktail of drugs used to treat the disease. |
After a baby is born the umbilical cord linking it to its mother is cut and the WHO advice is to leave the cord wound to heal by itself. But two new studies from Pakistan and Bangladesh have found that cleaning the cord and giving advice on the importance of hand washing reduces the number of deaths amongst new borns. ... |
Dr Berk Ozler of the World Bank on how giving young women in Malawi cash worth 20% of their household income leads to a reduced incidence of HIV infection. |
Dr Paul Elkington explains how a cheap antibiotic, doxycyline, could be a new treatment for TB. |
Dr Zelly Hill reports that cleaning the umbilical cord of new born babies saves their lives. |
Land is 1/2 mile from beautiful Kentucky Lake free public dock access, timber that can be cut periodically Great for hunting & fishing enthusiast . Copy of Plat is available online. See Media. |
In the course of a fascinating 75-minute walk, we will look at and discuss characteristics of the main plant groups: mosses and liverworts, ferns, conifers and 'modern' plants. Medicinal properties of selected species will be highlighted. The main focus will be on New Zealand indigenous plants. |
RACINE -- Tuesday, July 10th marked a tragic anniversary for a Racine family, after their son was shot and killed two years ago. Giovani Tirado's killer has never been found. He was 19 years old. |
FOX6 News has profiled this case twice as part of Wisconsin's Most Wanted. |
Investigators have followed leads, but so far, no arrests have been made, and there's been no closure for the Tirado family. |
On Tuesday, July 10th, 2012, the Tirado family visited Giovani's memorial site, and remembered the shooting inside the "Warning Track" bar two years ago that took Giovani's life. |
Officials say Lewis Hinojosa fired the gun, but what triggered the shooting isn't entirely clear. |
Officials say on the way out of the bar, Hinojosa pistol-whipped Giovani's brother, who says the only reason he's still alive is because Hinojosa ran out of bullets. |
Now, two years later, the Tirado family continues to look for closure, while officials seek Giovani's killer. |
U.S. Marshals have tracked leads in Kansas, Texas and Mexico. |
Officials say Hinojosa goes by the street name "Kamala." He is described as 5'6" tall, weighing about 230 pounds. He has a clown image tattoo on his left arm. |
Anyone with information into this case or Hinojosa's whereabouts is asked to contact the U.S. Marshals at (414) 297-3707. |
Why is that puny game crashing your power rig? Which component is getting pushed over the edge? Is it your watt-thirsty video card? The overclocked CPU? The interleaved banks of exotic RAM? Finding out the limits as you fine-tune a system can be harder than you might expect. HWMonitor (free) can help. |
Some configurations can play hard to get, even with HWMonitor. |
Newer motherboards provide helpful feedback when things go wrong, but gaining access to the diagnostics often requires a reboot into BIOS or some other disk trickery. Stability problems that arise in demanding, high-load situations aren't likely to reveal themselves during idle diagnostic states. This is where HWMonito... |
You can run HWMonitor side by side with a stress-test benchmark (such as Cinebench) or suspect game, watching the temperatures rise until a crash predictably repeats. Is the video card showing a spike before the blue screen? Does your CPU get hot enough to make s'mores? Chances are you just found your problem. HWMonito... |
Has your system suddenly become stealthy when it used to groan and moan? Don't be happy; be worried. That newfound silence might be an ill omen. HWMonitor helps here by telling you if a crucial fan has gone offline or is running abnormally. Remedying the situation can be as simple as unblocking a vent, reseating a cabl... |
Handy as it is, there are eccentricities in the code. Some hardware configurations pose problems for HWMonitor. For example, several AMD processors stopped reporting internal temperatures on an ASUS test system when the motherboard core unlocking feature was enabled. This problem disappeared when default CPU settings w... |
A pro version for IT professionals features remote operation, superior logging capabilities and graphing, but weighs in at a steep €19.95, almost $30 USD at the time of this writing. For most users, the free Basic version has all the information and features they will ever need. Given this goodness, recommendation is a... |
NEW ORLEANS – After plenty of news came out of last week’s FSWA Media Days, now it’s the Sun Belt Conference Media Days event which begins here in The Big Easy on Monday. |
FAU coach Howard Schnellenberger and quarterback Rusty Smith will be here for the event which warps up on Tuesday. |
On Monday, the Sun Belt will release its pre-season poll and pre-season All-Sun Belt team. I’ve talked to someone who has seen the poll and the team and the Owls are expected to be the pre-season favorite and be very well-represented on the team. |
Tuesday, SBC Commissioner Wright Waters is scheduled to “make a special announcement regarding postseason play.” That’s likely to be tie-in with a another bowl that will ensure more than one Sun Belt team will go bowling each year. Waters has made that issue a priority for years. |
After arriving here it doesn’t seem like it has already been six months since FAU fans were here flooding Bourbon Street into the wee hours after dispatching Memphis in the wee hours after the New Orleans Bowl. |
And if the predictions are correct it may not be the last time Schnellenberger and Smith are in New Orelans this season. |
41 DAYS AND COUNTING UNTIL FAU PLAYS TEXAS.–THERE ARE STILL TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE OXLEY CENTER AT FAU FOR THE FAU AT TEXAS GAME.–SOME REASONABLY PRICED AIRFARES ARE STILL AVAILABLE FROM SOUTH FLORIDA TO AUSTIN, DIRECT. |
FAU FANS HAVE A CHANCE TO WITNESS HISTORY!! |
08-30-08–YOU NEED TO BE IN AUSTIN!! |
Such a usefule blog厀ow !!!! |
Another big night at the net from Kelsey Kalous, coupled with 10 aces by her teammates, put Fort Morgan in position to challenge the No. 7 ranked Mead Mavericks in Tri-Valley League play Thursday night. |
It would not be enough to get the win, though. |
Mead took the first set 25-16 and then held on to win 25-20 and 25-21 in the final two sets to get the sweep at Fort Morgan High School. |
The Mavericks had a few mistakes in the net and a rotation error early to give Fort Morgan a 10-9 lead in the first set. After giving up the lead, Mead hit a few big kills to go up 13-10 and forced a timeout from the Mustangs. Some kills hit out of bounds by Fort Morgan and other plays from Mead extended the scoring ru... |
Kalous hit a few kills early in the second set to keep Fort Morgan close. Tayler Young hit the seventh ace of the night later to give the Mustangs a one-point lead as the teams went back and forth with points. That was until Mead went on a 7-0 run to lead 20-14. Fort Morgan would rally within a couple points late but n... |
Fort Morgan managed to make the third set the closest of the night with multiple girls recording kills and aces, but Mead again held off a late comeback effort to win and finish the sweep. |
Kalous led the Mustangs with nine kills, Brenna Reagan finished with six and Allie Bauman had five. The team combined for 10 aces and two service errors in the loss. |
The Mustangs drop to 3-8 overall and 1-4 in league play with Tuesday's loss. They are now riding a three-game losing streak into Thursday with a road game against the Windsor Wizards (9-3, 5-0 league), who enter the week ranked No. 10 in Class 5A. The week will come to an end Saturday in the Greeley West tournament. |
Yes, politics has always been intertwined with the most quintessentially American holiday — just ask those turkeys the presidents pardon every year. |
But in the Trump era, there’s growing evidence that partisanship is having a serious impact on our Thanksgiving Day festivities (see: yesterday’s newsletter). |
A majority of adults say they “dread the thought of having to talk about politics at Thanksgiving dinner,” according to a poll conducted last year by PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist. |
A study published in June found that celebrations were about 30 to 50 minutes shorter for Americans who crossed partisan lines for the holiday than for those who traveled to areas that voted like their own. The impacts were worse in battleground districts: Every 1,000 political ads aired in a specific area correlated t... |
That added up to 34 million hours of lost cross-partisan discourse in 2016, according to the study’s authors, who analyzed location information from more than 10 million smartphones and voting results from more than 172,000 precincts nationwide. |
The internet is full of survival guides for talking politics at the Thanksgiving table, and we’ve collected some of the best tips here. Now you can keep your holiday debates focused on the real issues, like to brine, or not to brine? |
A SurveyMonkey audience poll conducted last year found that Mr. Trump was the biggest culprit in hijacking Thanksgiving dinner, with 37 percent of respondents saying mention of the president was most likely to start an argument. |
The feeling cut across party lines, with Mr. Trump the most common answer among self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents. |
That’s part of how the Supreme Court justices help keep comity, according to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. The justices host a steady stream of elaborate birthday lunches, retirement dinners and weekend bagel spreads. |
Some basic ground rules can help make everyone feel comfortable during the holiday. What do those look like? Well, maybe designate the living room as a “politics zone.” Or place certain topics off-limits. Hosts can play a big role in this process: Considering starting the night with a toast to civility, and arrange sea... |
Our advice? Find the cutest thing in the room and home in. Be it the grandchildren or the dog, nothing builds group morale more than something adorable. Of course, editor Tom and I have the CUTEST CHILDREN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. (What can we say? We’re very lucky.) So this is an easy strategy for us. |
For those of you without children, just pull up a YouTube of “baby laughing at ripping paper.” Trust us on this one. |
We’re taking off the rest of this week to eat turkey, burrow into our couches and avoid arguments about politics. When we return next week, we’ll be on a reduced schedule — with the midterms over, we figured we could all stand to slow down for a bit. |
What are we thankful for? Finally realizing that those Black Friday deals are mostly duds. And, of course, all of you. |
Thanks, as always, for reading. Best wishes for a lovely, lazy Thanksgiving! |
Florida’s statewide recounts are finished. Georgia’s governor’s race came to an acrimonious end. But the South is not done counting votes. |
In fact, Georgia is set to start counting again on Wednesday, when elections officials are expected to pore over about 280,000 ballots in the Seventh Congressional District race. Representative Rob Woodall, a four-term Republican, leads the Democratic nominee, Carolyn Bourdeaux, by 419 votes. |
Atlanta’s diversifying suburbs, which Republicans dominated not long ago, were hospitable to Democrats this year. The House seat in the neighboring Sixth District — once held by Newt Gingrich — fell to the Democratic candidate Lucy McBath, and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor, carried the counties tha... |
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the second-to-last Thursday in November, giving in to pressure from retailers worried about Christmas shopping. The public was furious. |
The Nov. 23 holiday became known as “Franksgiving.” And when Roosevelt did it again the next year, The New York Times reported that 16 states chose to celebrate it on Nov. 28 instead. |
In 1941, Congress passed a law declaring Thanksgiving to be on the fourth Thursday of every November. |
The first turkey pardon didn’t come until 1987, when Mr. Reagan granted clemency as a joke to deflect questions from reporters asking about the Iran-contra scandal. His successor, President George H.W. Bush, made it an annual event in 1989. |
If you’re curious, the last few pardoned turkeys have been living out their years at Gobbler’s Rest, part of Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. |
Weeks after losing the 2008 election, Sarah Palin returned to Alaska, where she was still governor, to pardon some turkeys at a local farm. But as Ms. Palin answered questions about her campaign and governorship in a television interview, a farmer began casually killing some birds behind her — well within view of the c... |
In 2013, the White House held a public vote to see which bird — Popcorn or Caramel— would be spared the slaughter. #TeamPopcorn won, but #TeamCaramel was also granted clemency. |
Popcorn died less than a year later, but Caramel survived. The reason: He lost weight. |
Something to think about when you dig in on Thursday. |
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